The Listening Sky (21 page)

Fear knifed through her. “The one for… what?”

He pulled her to him. She had no chance to resist. They were so close her breasts were against his chest. She looked up into
his down-turned face in total confusion.

“Something has happened between us—something that makes me want to be with you every minute of the day. I think… I hope you
feel that way too.”

“I… I—”

“Are you trying to think of a way to deny it?” His face was grave, but she could see that his eyes had changed. Was it tenderness
she saw there?

His gaze dropped to her mouth and her heart seemed to stall before it settled into a pounding rhythm. It was then that he
placed a quick, hard kiss on her lips.

“You know it’s true, my sweet Miss Pickle,” he whispered, and wheeled out the door on his silent bootless feet.

Jane pressed the back of her hand to her lips. Then she turned back to the window and held the sides of her pounding head
with her two hands as if to squeeze him from her mind.

Just before noon another headache arrived in the form of Bob Fresno. Jane was in the surgery cleaning up after treating a
burn on a man’s forearm. A knock sounded on the door. She opened it and there Bob stood behind Polly. Jane could feel his
hot dark eyes fastened on her face.

“He says he’s sick,” Polly said.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Ya’d refuse a dyin’ man?” Fresno moved around in front of Polly, forcing her to back away.

“You don’t look sick to me.” She turned away, dismissing him. He pushed at the door when she tried to close it, came into
the surgery, closed the door and leaned against it.

“I had to say I was sick to see ya. Don’t ya ever come outta this place?”

“Open the door, Mr. Fresno.”

“Not until you say you’ll come out tonight and walk with me like you did Kilkenny.”

“Open the door.”

“I just want to talk to ya, get to know ya.”

“Open the door.”

“Hell, ya’d think I had cholera or the pox. I’m not a bad sort.”

“I’m very busy—”

“Ya wasn’t too busy to go strollin’ with Kilkenny.”

“That is none of your business.”

“He ain’t courtin’ ya. I know that fer a fact”

“What you know or don’t know is of no importance to me. Now, please leave.”

“He walks out with a different one ever’ night. Goes down behind the livery to that pile a cut grass. All the fellers hee-haw
about it.”

“What Mr. Kilkenny does is none of my business or yours.” Pain swirled around her heart. Was he telling the truth?

“I was just tellin’ ya ‘cause I don’t want ya to get yore hopes up. Oh, I know he’s the big dog ‘round here. That’s jist it.
He can have any woman he wants.”

“Open the door and get out!”

“Ya been on my mind since I first saw ya.”

She looked squarely at him. He had been at the station when she got the first threatening note and had eyed her then but in
a more flirtatious way than he was doing now. He was serious and unsmiling. Could he be behind the notes left for her? Was
he going to blackmail her into… being with him?

Into the silence a heavy fist pounded hard on the door.

“Jane! Hurry!” Herb’s voice sounded frantic.

“Get out of my way,” Jane snarled, and the startled man moved. She flung open the door. Herb was bounding up the stairs. Polly
stood at the bottom wringing her hands. “Get that man out,” Jane said harshly. “If he won’t go, go out into the street and
scream your head off.”

She didn’t wait to see if her orders were obeyed. She lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs to Doc’s room. Herb was on his
knees beside the bed. Jane went to stand behind him. Doc’s eyes were open. He looked up at her.

“This… is it, girl.” His voice was barely audible.

“No, Doc!” Herb’s big shoulders shook. Jane pressed close to his side and put her hand on his shoulder.

She had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could speak calmly.

“I know, Nathan. We’ve been expecting it, haven’t we? I’m glad we have a chance to say good-bye.”

“You’re a pistol—”

“And you’ve got more guts than any ten men I’ve ever met.”

His lids floated down, then up. Faded eyes focused on Herb.

“You’ve been as good a son… as I could a wished for.”

“Doc—I never thanked ya—” Tears flowed freely down freshly shaven cheeks. He placed Doc’s hand in his open palm. The strong
holding the weak, the young holding the old.

“Didn’t have to, boy.”

“I never told ya how… much I thought of ya, either.”

“I… knew. T.C. ‘ll keep a eye on you. Kinda go along with what he says.” Doc’s fingers moved against Herb’s. “Never thought
I’d die in bed. Thought sure somebody’d shoot me.”

Jane had to strain to hear his words. His eyes closed, then opened again.

“Is it night?”

“Almost,” Jane said softly.

“Thought I’d be scared, but I’m not.” His eyes closed again, and Jane knew somehow they would never open.

She went to the other side of the bed, sat down and picked up his hand. This fragile man had used this hand to save lives—many,
many lives. She held it tightly and, because he would not see them, she let the tears flow freely down her cheeks.

An hour later, maybe two, because there was no measure of the time Jane and Herb sat beside him, Doc breathed his last. T.C.
came in before the end and stood like a tall, silent sentinel beside the window.

Dr. Nathan Foote did not die alone and unloved.

Maude proved to be a blessing. While Stella stayed with Polly, she and Jane washed the doctor and dressed him in a black suit,
a white shirt and high celluloid collar. T.C. and Colin brought the burial box and set it up on two sawhorses in T.C.’s office.
Herb carried Doc’s body down the stairs and placed him in it after Jane had lined it with the blanket Herb had brought from
the store.

Jane and Herb looked in the surgery for a memento of his life’s work to place beside him. T.C. came in, unlocked a drawer
in Doc’s desk and took out a box. In it was a medal inscribed: Nathan Foote, Doctor of Medicine, for bravery on the battlefield.
It had been presented by President Ulysses S. Grant. Also in the box were newspaper clippings extolling the young doctor who
had braved the fire from his own Confederate soldiers to treat men on the Union side. He was described as a true American
hero, who tended the Blue, the Gray, and the fighting freed slaves with the same devotion whenever the need arose.

“He was quite a man,” T.C. said softly and handed the medal to Herb to pin on the doctor’s dark suit.

Word spread quickly of the doctor’s death, and all afternoon women came to the back door with covered dishes, their faces
solemn in respect for the dead. By sundown the table was laden with a variety of food including pies, canned beets and pickles,
loaves of bread and even pickled eggs. The merchant at the store sent down a block of cheese and, not to be outdone, Sweet
William made his famous peach cobbler.

“What will we do with all this?” Polly asked in bewilderment.

Jane looked at Maude. “What do you suggest?”

“You might ask Mr. Kilkenny if, after the burial tomorrow, we can put tables out on the porch and folks could come by and
eat.”

“Doc didn’t know many people here. Maybe no one will come to the burying.”

“The whole town will turn out,” Maude said with a small smile. “I see you’ve not lived in a town this small. In such a little
place weddings and burials are sort of a social event.”

“Social event,” Jane echoed the words and thought of the burials at the school orphanage. An hour was set aside for a brief
service in the church and burial in the church cemetery with only the clergy and one or two of the teachers attending.

“People will come who have never set eyes on the doctor,” Maude said. “We must prepare for them.”

Maude Henderson had changed from the cowed woman she had been when she arrived three weeks earlier. Stella had changed too.
She still clung close to her mother, but was no longer her shadow. Maude never talked about herself or where she and Stella
had lived before coming to Timbertown. Jane knew no more about the pair than she had learned that first day, but she liked
Maude very much. It was evident that the woman had had a painful past and was trying to put it behind her to make a better
life for herself and her daughter.

“Will you speak to Mr. Kilkenny?” Jane asked. “I think I’ll go up and lie down. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

“It ain’t no wonder. Why’d that logger that come here shut the door? Did he say somethin’ nasty to ya?” Polly turned a worried
face to Jane. “He was mad as a hornet when he left. He just stomped out.”

Jane waved her hand as if to dismiss the matter. She had been too busy to think about Bob Fresno, but now it all came back.
Had she been wrong about its being one of the women who sent the notes? If he was the one, how could he have gotten into the
women’s bunkhouse to put the paper in her shoe? Maybe he was using one of the women as his messenger.

These thoughts raced through her head as she went up to the room she shared with Polly. After taking her precious few hairpins
out of her hair and placing them on the top of her valise, she took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She was tired in
body, but more so in her mind. Tears slid down her cheeks, but she was too weary to wipe them away.

T.C., when he knew that the end was near for Doc, had asked Jeb to have one of his best carpenters build a burial box. It
brought to T.C.’s mind the need to have the funerary repaired. With a population of more than a hundred people in town alone
and a hundred more in the surrounding area, there were bound to be more deaths before long.

Work would stop until noon the next day to allow time for those who wished to to pay their respects to Doc. The saloon and
most of the businesses would close, as was the custom when a prominent person such as the town doctor passed away.

It was the golden time of the evening. In the mountains the time between sundown and dark was short. Lights were flickering
on all over town. T.C. stood on the porch with Colin.

“I haven’t seen Jane for a while.”

“Mrs. Henderson said she went upstairs.” T.C. was still mulling over what Polly had told him about the man who had gone into
the surgery with Jane and shut the door. She said that Jane had been angry when she came out. It could mean something or it
could mean nothing. He didn’t think any of the men were foolish enough to insult Jane here in his house. If that were the
case, the man, whoever he was, was in for a sound thrashing.

Sunday came from across the street. Her cloud of blond hair was in disarray
as
usual.

“Howdy. Sorry about the doc.”

“Howdy, Sunday. Come on up and sit.” Colin indicated the bench next to the wall.

“I come to ask Jane if there was anythin’ I could do.”

“Jane’s worn out. I think she’s sleeping. Polly and Herb are sitting with Doc. Go in if you want to.” T.C. watched Colin’s
interchange with the girl, who still had not come up onto the porch.

“I don’t want to bother her. Tell her I called.”

When she turned away, Colin stepped down off the porch.

“Have ya got anythin’ more important to do than walk with me to the livery? I’m goin’ to take a look-see at Del Norte.”

A smile flicked across Sunday’s face, but she didn’t laugh.

“I reckon the queen can wait while I walk with you,” she said with mock haughtiness.

Colin’s chuckle was low and warm. They walked away with their shoulders almost touching, Colin’s head slightly bent toward
her.

T.C. stood on the porch and finished smoking his cigarette. Then he stepped down and carefully ground the butt into the dirt
with the toe of his boot. A lifetime of being in the woods and seeing whole sections of forests go up in flames had left him
with a healthy respect for fire.

Inside the house, he paused in the doorway of his office. Beside Doc’s casket in the candlelit room, Polly and Herb sat on
straight-backed chairs brought from the kitchen. It was a godsend that Polly was here and that Herb had taken to her. She
hold onto his hand, giving silent comfort to the grieving boy. Doc had been like a father to him, and he was feeling the loss
deeply.

In the kitchen Mrs. Henderson was busy picking the pinfeathers from a fowl.

“I hope that’s Bill’s rooster that’s been waking me every morning.”

“It isn’t.” She gave him a pleasant smile. “Mr. Tallman brought in six pheasants—all shot in the head. It’s a pleasure to
clean one that isn’t shot to pieces.”

“That’s Colin. He’s good with a knife, too. I’ve seen him hit a fly speck on the wall. When you’re ready to go back to the
bunkhouse, I’ll carry Stella for you.” He glanced at the young girl asleep on a pallet.

“No! But thank you. It would scare her to death to wake up bein’ carr—” Maude’s voice trailed to a halt. A shadow of fright
darkened her eyes, and she drew her lower lip between her teeth.

Another time T.C. would have noticed, but his mind was on Jane.

“Has Jane come down for something to eat?”

“I haven’t seen her. Poor girl’s frazzled to the bone. I didn’t want to bother her, so I went ahead and brought down all the
bedding and… things from the doctor’s room.”

T.C. nodded his approval and left the kitchen. He stood at the foot of the stairs for a long minute. The house was quiet except
for the occasional rattle of tin on the roof as a gust of wind rippled over it. Someday he would buy Jane a mantel clock.
She would like the pleasant sound of ticking in a quiet house. The thought brought him up short.
Kilkenny, you don’t know any such thing.

As if drawn by invisible strings, T.C. went slowly up the stairs. Halfway up he paused. It had been a long while since anyone
had seen Jane. She might have picked up her things and left the house. She had promised to stay only until Doc was gone. Fear
clouded his reasoning, and he took the remainder of the steps two at a time.

At the door to her room, he paused again to listen, then shoved open the door and went in. His fear drained away, and relief
washed over him like a warm summer rain.